XZero771679666304

Not that it matters, but that was an impressive display of simply refusing to take a walk.

Len is right, that may have been the worst checked swing call ever

[expletive], Rizzo

If the Cubs played the Cards 162 times this year, Darwin Barney would be an MVP candidate. Well, not really, but he has a .900+ OPS against them.

All it's going to take to create a scenario where Bryant ends up in the OF is for two of Baez, Alcantara, Villanueva or Olt to pan out, and I think there's a decent chance of that happening. Of course trades/attrition can and likely will thin the ranks a bit, but it's not hard to envision scenarios where Bryant is forced off of the IF (which is what some have been predicting regardless).

That feels like the kind of trade a team makes in the offseason. Potential trade partners aren't going to want to tear up their team mid-season for Castro, and I certainly want more than just prospects for him. I trust the other GMs to be able to understand regression to the mean and price Castro fairly accordingly. In theory, we shouldn't gain anything on average by waiting to trade him, if that's what we wanted to do. To a point yes, but I think it's naive to think they would not use his poor performance this year as leverage in a trade negotiation. I'd prefer to wait and see if he rebounds next year and then trade him in the 2014-15 offseason. It'd be a gamble, sure, but I just don't think we'd get nearly as much as we should this offseason.

He'd have to be playing really well to make it worth it, I think.

Well, that certainly begs a question. Castro's value is as a shortstop, he could move to second, but there will likely be a better option there soon, too. Trade him. Unless Castro is worse next season (unlikely), his value is about as low as it is going to get, and the Cubs wouldn't get much in return. I don't see a trade happening, at least not anytime soon. I still see a 3B-Baez, SS-Castro 2B-Alcantara infield alignment as being the likely scenario. I'm also not nearly prepared to dismiss the possibility of Olt being the 3B, perhaps as early as the second half of next year. I really think Bryant's future is in the OF.

I think Bryant ends up in the OF.

I've tried to temper my enthusiasm over Baez, but it's getting more difficult by the day. His adjustment period to AA was extremely short compared to the one to A+, and he's young for the league he is tearing up (and he's taking some walks, thank you very much Keith Law). You try not to expect a prospect to become a major league star, but it's getting to that point.

I doubt one single person on this board is satisfied with the total state of the franchise, or who doesn't think that upping the payroll to where it should be wouldn't make things at least slightly more palatable. No one is reveling in what is going on, or is having their angst over the abysmal state of the big club completely assuaged by Theo and Jed's minor league maneuverings. Ownership is not doing what it can or should, and that pisses us all off, I think. But at the same time, sarcastically lamenting an total organizational lack of "trying" over and over and over ad infinitum and expressing the opinion the money would make it all better right away is an ignorant and meatballish way of expressing that displeasure. Given the circumstances, some people are focusing on what is going well and hoping that the money issue is going to be resolved. There's really no point in doing anything else, at least on NSBB. Sure, there are some smug people who act as if they have some preternatural insight into the grand plan, but they are no less irritating than the "all they need to do is try (i.e. throw money at the problem)" crowd. This is a fan forum, not a focus group for ownership to take cues from. Teeth gnashing and hand wringing here isn't going help in any way, and the blind negativity from some is just a further irritation to the rest. If people are in such a state of displeasure over the state of things that they can't contain it even for a few posts, perhaps a letter to Tom Ricketts or an editorial to one of the papers would be a better outlet than ceaseless one note raging, bitching and sarcasm on a fan message board.

It's going to be in both leagues. The MLBPA will never allow the DH to be done away with, and with the new alignment and expanded interleague play, its league-wide institution is an inevitability.

This is the part I don't get. Yes, the big league team is bad, and that sucks. No one is enjoying this. But this isn't a situation where you can cast blanket condemnation over the entire organization for "not trying". It's a little more nuanced than that.

Javybomb

To consider him a total non-prospect with no substantive MLB future. Which I suspect you know I meant.

Olt has been terrible at Iowa and mediocre all around this year, but it totally premature to write him off.

Villanueva>Vitters>Olt If only Vitters could stop breaking all his [expletive]. I still like Vitters more than Villanueva but I agree that at this point Villanueva>Olt Vitters has been a slightly better hitter, but he's an awful defender at 3B while Villanueva is a plus defender. I think you have to give the overall edge to Villanueva.

He can be amazing. But sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get people to admit that he's ever made any sort of mistake or miscalculation. That's overstating things a tad. Of course he and Jed make mistakes, that's a given. What baseball executives do is not an exact science, and you expect even the best ones to miss as often as they hit.

"It was a miss and misses happen" is a lot more reasonable than "how could they have been expected to think differently than the consensus?" I didn't say that. The point of mentioning the "29 other teams" was meant to illustrate that there were other great front offices that missed, too. And obviously the Cubs thought differently than much of the consensus, just not as differently as the Dodgers.

29 other teams thought less of Soler than we did. Do you regret that? No, but no one is going to take the right gamble 100% of the time, and it's foolishness to expect so. A the time Puig had many more question marks than Soler did, and the Dodgers had more info on him than anyone. I just can't get to the point where I can point at the FO and say they screwed up badly with regard to Puig. Misses happen, they happen all the time, and they happen to the best of them.

The Dodgers I don't think you can infer that from the simple fact that the Dodgers signed him. And this treatment of the Puig situation (by some) as being one where the Cubs goofed by missing on some clear cut stud is bordering on the ridiculous. I hope you realize I'm not doing that. CT's challenge was: I created a list of them. I then shortened it and pointed out that investments we made in other players could have been swapped to guys on the list I created with very little payroll impact. Not once did I say the front office should have been prescient enough to sign Puig instead of Soler - just that it would have answered CT's challenge. I see what you're doing now. But at the same time, it's a pointless exercise.

Which is why I said what I did.

The Dodgers I don't think you can infer that from the simple fact that the Dodgers signed him. And this treatment of the Puig situation (by some) as being one where the Cubs goofed by missing on some clear cut stud is bordering on the ridiculous. The Dodgers paid a crapton more money for Puig than they presumably bid for Soler. I think it's pretty easy to infer. It doesn't matter whether it was 'clear-cut' or not. It's their job to find these things. Well, they're one of 29 other teams who apparently didn't think as much of Puig. I can live with that.

The Dodgers I don't think you can infer that from the simple fact that the Dodgers signed him. And this treatment of the Puig situation (by some) as being one where the Cubs goofed by missing on some clear cut stud is bordering on the ridiculous.

Darvish didn't a lot of choice in the matter, but your point stands. And for all we know, the additional $10M in Tim's scenario might not have been available to the FO.